I will not presume to descant on the bodily structural tissues, so fully canvassed in the _Cornhill Magazine_, nor how they are supported and renovated, having no mind or power to enter into these questions, which properly belong to the wise heads of the Faculty. None of my family on the side of either parent had any tendency to corpulence, and from my earliest years I had an inexpressible dread of such a calamity, so, when I was between thirty and forty years of age, finding a tendency to it creeping upon me, I consulted an eminent surgeon, now long deceased--a kind personal friend--who recommended increased bodily exertion before my ordinary daily labors began, and thought rowing an excellent plan. I had the command of a good, heavy, safe boat, lived near the river, and adopted it for a couple of hours in the early morning. It is true I gained muscular vigor, but with it a prodigious appetite, which I was compelled to indulge, and consequently increased in weight, until my kind old friend advised me to forsake the exercise. He soon afterwards died, and, as the tendency to corpulence remained, I consulted other high orthodox authorities (_never any inferior adviser_), but all in vain. I have tried sea air and bathing in various localities, with much walking exercise; taken gallons of physic and liquor potasssæ, advisedly and abundantly; riding on horseback; the waters and climate of Leamington many times, as well as those of Cheltenham and Harrogate frequently; have lived upon sixpence a day, so to speak, and earned it, if bodily labor may be so construed; and have spared no trouble nor expense in consultations with the best authorities in the land, giving each and all a fair time for experiment, without any permanent remedy, as the evil still gradually increased. I am under obligations to most of those advisers for the pains and interest they took in my case; but only to one for an effectual remedy. When a corpulent man eats, drinks and sleeps well, has no pain to complain of and no particular organic disease, the judgment of able men seems paralyzed,--for I have been generally informed that corpulence is one of the natural results of increasing years; indeed one of the ablest authorities as a physician in the land told me he had gained 1 lb. in weight every year since he attained manhood, and was not surprised at my condition, but advised more bodily exercise--vapor-baths, and shampooing, in addition to the medicine given. Yet the evil still increased, and, like the parasite of barnacles on a ship, if it did not destroy the structure it obstructed its fair, comfortable progress in the path of life.